Asymptotic
by Ready To Flyxxx
Summary: "You asked me what I think of you," Gary keeps talking, "but it's hard for me to put that into words." Pokeshipping and Egoshipping.


And they get closer and closer but never quite meet the way they want to.

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"What's your poison?" Gary asks her, smile on his lips as disarming as a knife to her throat and a twinkle of mirth winking at her from within the greens of his eyes. He's handsome in a dangerous kind of way, and Misty feels herself flush from the neck up - an involuntary action that she never really has been able to control. The night is young. There is a ringing in her ears she guesses is music. And somewhere, a raven haired man is trekking up the precipice of Mount Silver.

"Well, well, well," she plays along, tapping a finger thoughtfully against her chin, "you play a dangerous game, Oak." Her eyes are dark and challenging; they soak in his features like a sponge.

"It's a simple question." He shrugs, and leans backwards against the bar, the folds of his suit jacket taught against his broad shoulders. They're not ten anymore, she reminds herself, and she really needs to stop being so shocked at the fact that she is no longer as tall as him.

Maybe, even as the course of the evening began, there's been a lot of reminders about that fact - not the height, but the former. She's not ten, and she's no longer the same person as she was when she began her journey all those years ago. It bothers her that it took some League Gala to knock that fact into her brain. It's as if the advent of so many familiar faces has left her weak at the knees, not so much because of a feeling of nostalgia, but rather the tiny hole of expectancy that has began to form with it.

Because _honestly,_ if they're here then he has to be here; _he has to he has to he has to_ and -

"Misty," Gary speaks, and her eyes snap directly towards his own. She likes the way his green eyes look: sharp and daunting, promising things she wishes she could accept. She hates the way his green eyes aren't: soft and familiar, the ones that never promised her anything, that she'd accept in a heartbeat if they did.

There are moments like this when the past catches up to her, but she averts her gaze directly ahead, eyes level with the horizon where her next path awaits her. She will not stray; there is no room to falter. The future is the only possible thing she can think of that promises her something of value. After all, the past is full of ancient ghosts and memories she's spent far too long repressing to let turn up. If she let them take over her then where would she be? No where, that's the answer.

But believing and doing are two very different things.

"Right," she calms herself down, "I'll have whatever you're having."

The drink is slid towards her petite hands, hands that are old yet not, hands that are heavy with stories and the imprint of another, hands Gary could hold of he asked (but he doesn't, and they both know why).

Around them, Lance is thanking everyone for attending. He makes some dumb joke about his suit getting mixed up at the dry-cleaners, and everyone laughs. He lists off the names of their sponsors. He talks about the goals of the Elite Four. There is some small banter between him and a lab tech Misty doesn't recognize and doesn't really care to know. Then, he calls attention towards some of the Masters, and Misty can no longer hear his words, just watch as his lips move, the whites of his teeth poking out at times from within the cavern of his mouth. There is silence for a while as a man whispers in the dragon enthusiast's ear: apparently, one of the Masters has yet to show.

Gary and Misty both stop listening.

"To our health," Gary toasts, letting the shared moment pass and clinking his shot glass against her own. He drains it in one smooth motion. She follows suit.

It tastes like bitter cold whiplash, like the wind that threatens to blow you off course, even as you dig your feet firmly into the ground. It tastes like relief: the feeling you get when you finally reach the top of the mountain and every muscle in your body screams victory. It tastes like the missing pair of lips against your own; the empty side of the bed; the young boy who left as just that, and came back a man too far out of your reach to catch up.

It tastes like something Misty and Gary know well.

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"You're calling me again, this is getting weird, Oak." Misty leans against her kitchen table, eyes locked onto the screen where Gary's face peers back at her. She feels her hand move towards her hair ready to curl the strands around her finger, but quickly stops herself. There's no way she's acting like her sisters.

Gary lets out a low chuckle.

He looks like he hasn't shaved in a few days, and Misty can't help but stare at the stubble against his chin; it looks good in a rugged kind of way. He's probably been too busy with his research to groom himself, but it's understandable. She admires how much effort he puts into his work. Gary is anything but a slacker - no one can tell him that he's only managed his position because of his grandfather, he's earned that on his own.

"I'm gracing you with my presence, that's what it is," he states, smiling at her softly. Sometimes the smirk he normally wears is stripped off: this is one of those times. It's funny though, because he doesn't even realize it's gone.

" _Sure_ you are."

"Hey now."

"So why did you call?" Misty rests her chin against the palm of her hand. She gives him her utmost attention; her heart is a jar rendered open.

"I'd like to ask you a few things for my research."

"Did you have another break through?"

She watches his eyes grow wide with excitement as he quickly delves into an explanation. This is one of the moments where he gets a chance to nerd out and Misty can't help but smile.

She feels her cheeks warm in a pleasant kind of way.

Gary calls her often now, and Misty returns the favor. In all honesty, it's nice to have a friend to talk to, especially because the two of them are often busy and don't get out nearly as much as they should. Most of the time, they don't say much. Not that it bothers them, they're quite content with chatting about whatever battle Misty's had, or Gary's latest finds and scientific inquiries that often go over her head. He listens as she tells him her plans to study some courses on marine biology - something she feels will really connect her to her pokemon, and also how she has been training hard to get into the Elite Four.

Sometimes, they speak about the past. That doesn't last long, and it's a silent agreement between the two of them to skirt around specific names.

"So, would you mind if I came to your gym to look at some of your water pokemon? It would really help to observe them in comparison to the ones I've captured from Unova."

"My door is open any time, Gary."

His presence is welcome, wanted even at times, and there are moments when that fact scares her. The Pallet in him is what makes it the worse: there are too many reminders of a certain someone that hang in the air.

It's not so much fear as it is guilt that makes her end the call early.

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"You seem...different," Daisy tells her, peering at her baby sister with the utmost suspicion etched deep into her features. "Like, happier, even." The Waterflower sister cocks her head to the side, waves of blonde hair tumbling down the expanse of her shoulder. As if the situation couldn't get worse, she smiles.

It's a predatory smile - an evil _I know something you don't want me to know_ smile that makes Misty's skin crawl. The only thought that runs through Misty's head is to get as far away as humanly possible, before something truly bad happens. So she does, or at least tries to. Her feet pick up speed and before she knows it she is running out the door inches from freedom - until Daisy yanks her back by her suspenders. Misty gives a profound, yelp!

"Hey!" the younger sister attempts (in vain) to protest.

Daisy rolls her eyes. "Oh shush." The blonde looks at her sister with annoyance. "Why do you still have those?" She snaps the suspenders against Misty's back once again.

"They're holding up my shorts, Daisy. Geez, is your head that thick? _Ow!"_ Misty winces, rubbing her head from Daisy's slap. "I would slug you right back if it didn't make you cry."

"Such a good sister."

"Your irony is noted."

Daisy hasn't stopped trying to catch Misty's eyes since her whole interrogation began, and Misty finds it weird. _Honestly_ , _what the hell does she wa-_

"You're seeing someone, aren't you?"

 _Oh._

The only thing she can think of is to deny deny deny. Misty splutters, "Huh!? Of course not! Who said that?" She's not lying: she isn't seeing anyone. So why does she feel so defensive?

Daisy's eyes are suddenly cold and calculative - they aren't her normal shade of harbored intellect. They pierce through Misty like an arrow. "You aren't fooling anyone, Mist. I can tell, _hell_ , I know you."

"You know nothing."

"I know enough to say you're hiding something. It's a guy, isn't it?"

Misty says nothing.

Daisy sighs. Misty knows what's about to come next: if there is one thing that Daisy does best, it's sisterly advice. Misty hates it, mainly because she's always right. Daisy opens her mouth and Misty watches as the red of her lips begin to form words. "When a girl is in love, her heart opens up. Sometimes she wears that on her sleeves; other times she chooses to lock it away within herself. In that situation, it spills out inside of her, prepares to drown her from the inside. You've never stopped locking your heart away since you returned from your journey, and you certainly haven't let yourself pop." She grabs Misty by the shoulder and holds her in place, manicured fingernails digging into the fleshy bit where skin meets bone. "So tell me, baby sister, who exactly are you using to forget him?"

There is a sudden squeeze on Misty's heart, and she wants to scream; she wants her voice to erupt through her throat and cleave her body in half from the inside. It feels as if she's a caged pokemon, unleashed.

There is something within her that absolutely _bursts._

"I never asked to like him!" her voice comes out, clipped and sudden, strained even as she tries to keep a level pitch.

"Of course you didn't."

"I can't forget him. I keep trying and trying and no matter how much I pretend that I don't, I can't help but like him."

"Misty you don't like him, you _love_ him!"

"I'm not talking about bloody Ash!"

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There were times, when she was younger, when Misty entertained the idea of being loved. Not in the sense that family and friends will always be there for you and fight for you until the very end - bonds as endless as rivers and stronger than diamonds - but loved in the romantic sense.

She wanted to be kissed silly; she wanted a lover's slow caress and warm embrace; she wanted to give her heart to someone she trusted with her life and they in turn to do the same. She wanted what all of those fairy tales had been leading up to, what they promised her small ten year old self all those years ago.

And well, surprise surprise it didn't happen.

Instead, she got the boy with dreamer's eyes, who looked on ahead and saw a path that was only big enough for himself, had ambitions and goals that she tried and tried and tried to follow but failed. She got all of the longing and waiting that accompanied the process of falling for him, with none of the reciprocity that was supposed to go with it. She got false hope and false perceptions that even still have never fully gone away and a heart that was rendered open by a force too unstoppable - to inexorable - for her to change.

She got Ash, and it's a beginning and an ending all in one.

She loves him, and if he loves her back she has no idea (maybe she'll never know) but no one ever told her it was going to be this hard. No one ever warned her.

It's why she wants to forget him. She wants to start a new life with someone else to care and love for. She wants to choose her own path and not give a damn about her heart. She wants...happiness _darn it_ , and if Gary gives her that then why does she feel so _terrible?_

Why does it hurt her?

"Because you don't love him," a voice tells her, and she realizes that it's her own.

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"What do you think about me?" Misty asks Gary, when she's tired of playing around. They're at her gym. She can see the moon hang high in the sky from her window and she's already traced its crescent frown a thousand times with her eyes. "Honestly."

Gary freezes. He looks like a painting in that moment: features smooth and picturesque, eyes containing a storm - the color swirled with the finest brush, and his presence so fixed and well rehearsed. He wets his lips, and Misty expects his face to run down her imaginative canvas, drip onto the floor she had cleaned just before his arrival.

"Well?" she presses.

Gary has his own heart, and she wonders if she fits in his the way he fits in hers. Misty knows he's had others before her. She knows that he has a past he keeps hidden, and she is fairly certain it's not just because she does the same to him.

Will he understand then?

Gary seems to know what she is asking when he speaks, "I think you and I are the same. Maybe that's why I can't help but be drawn to you."

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Here is one undeniable truth that Misty knows better than anything: before there was Misty and Ash, there was Ash and Gary.

The two of them were childhood friends made rivals. It's funny, because even though Gary had _everything_ , he was nothing compared to Ash. All his life, Gary had heard nothing but that name. He's expressed this to her before.

It was Ash who his Grandfather favored.

It was Ash who took the same dream as him.

It was Ash who then beat him and got all the glory, even after he _trained and trained and trained._

Even now, it's Ash who Misty loves, and she loves Gary too, but she's not _in love_ with him and... _and…_

 _And?_

And she hates herself for it. She hates that it feels like she's playing him and she wants to love him but she _can't._

She's afraid too, because what if Ash doesn't love her back? Then she'll have no one.

Her selfishness makes her sink further into herself on the couch where she is sitting. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, hands tucked under them as if to hide away her shame.

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"You asked me what I think of you," Gary keeps talking, "but it's hard for me to put that into words."

They sit next to each other, close enough that their thighs are touching, that their shoulders press evenly together. If she were being poetic, she might say they fit together like two puzzle pieces, but ones that have been forcefully placed side by side (they're both trying to make it work, but know it's not quite right).

He waits for her eyes to find his before he speaks again, "You seem to think your heart makes you a forbidden fruit or something, like no one can get close you because they aren't the one," his hands find her's in the dark, "but you're wrong. You are the controller of your own life. I know you think that I'm some pity date, and you can't be," his voice falters a little, "whatever we are, because you're guilty, but it's not true. I've chosen you out of my own accord, and I'm fully aware of the consequences."

"I love you," he speaks with the utmost sincerity, and Misty can no longer reach his eyes.

There is a stretch of silence that lasts too long for comfort, and they both know it.

"What do you want me to say?" she finally asks him, because she has no idea herself.

"Nothing." He stands up, unhooks his hand from her own. "I don't expect you to say anything." He begins to leave. Her eyes are glued to him, watching as he makes his way to the front door. She can't move. She wants so badly to move.

"I'm tired of being second place, Misty."

She thinks her heart might break when he looks back at her (stares longingly at the forbidden fruit).

"I've burned all of my bridges leading to you. If you want to do the same, you know where to find me," he promises.

He closes the door then, and Misty's left holding the lighter.

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End file.
